Inspiring Readers to Knit

It was on March 25, 1996, that readers first learned of the small part, Guideposts' Editor, Brigitte Weeks had played in a program to create warm sweaters for needy and cold children around the world. One thing led to another, and the Guideposts Sweater Project was born.  We recently received our 300,000 sweater!  Because the project has been such a success and is here to stay, we've given it a new name, Guideposts Knit for Kids!

From Daily Guideposts, March 25, 1996

Remembering before our God and Father your work of faith and labor of love....
—I Thessalonians 1:3 (RSV)

One morning I picked up the newspaper in the driveway and flipped through it in an absentminded way. Suddenly, I stopped and my heart thumped. There, looking up at me, in a blurry photograph if a Rwandan child, with arms like sticks and skin stretched over his bones.  He was crouched over, bent double, wearing only a sweater with a shape and stripes that were unmistakable to me.
     "Look at this!" I said excitedly to my sleepy children, who were only interested in Frosted Flakes.  But I waved the paper under their noses. 
     "Hey, Mom," said my son Hilary, "he's wearing one of your sweaters." Then all three crowded round as if I were holding a winning lottery ticket.
     I knit. My friends tease me about the fact that I always have a piece of knitting tucked into my bag. I tell them I am knitting children's sweaters for an international relief group. Knitters, adults and children, around the world have made many thousands of these simple garments. They're all the same shapeless, easy-to-knit pattern, good for any yarn and any degree of skill. The sleeves are knitted as part of the body, making both the back and front like a woolen T.
     I began doing this about ten years ago and must have sent off more than fifty sweaters of every size and color. Lately, I've even lured friends into using up their yarn scraps this way. (That's why the pattern is striped, of course, to use every spare ball of yarn available.)
     As I've worked, I've often wondered whether this tiny contribution made any difference, or even whether the sweaters ever reached the children. After a decade of knitting, here was proof.
     A special grace, I know, led me to open the newspaper that day. Now, as I sit waiting for a train, clicking my needle, the photo of that little boy is worked in every stitch.

Help me, God, to keep working and giving even when I don't see the results - and thank You when I do.    —Brigitte Weeks